by Yoon Cannon | Business Growth Tips Blog, Marketing and Sales Blog Posts
Guest Author: Bruce Williamson, Wild Goose Media
Do you remember back to when you first started your business? You did it because you loved it and people probably said you’re really good at that. You most likely relied on your early customers, friends, and family to help spread the word about how great you really are at what you do. Today, marketing has changed a lot. Everyone is fighting for a customer’s attention, and the customer knows it. They are much more aware and educated than any other time in history, and it’s not getting easier. Reputation marketing is essential for building a successful business.
Let’s be honest, online or offline, there are only so many ways to market (SEO, PPC, Deal Sites, Local Marketing, Direct Mail, etc.) The truth is, while those things all have their place, none of it will be effective if you have bad reviews or no reviews online.
What’s really happened is a complete flip-flop in online marketing strategy due to the fact that your customers have a say in the matter. Before you would spend money on marketing, then maybe if you had the time you’d work on getting some great reviews from customers. That’s completely the opposite of what today’s marketing is about.
Would you rather create a marketing plan for complete strangers who don’t know you, don’t like you, don’t trust you? Or would you rather create a marketing plan for people that know, trust and like you because they’re all presold on you through referrals?
For the first time online marketing can be just as powerful as referral marketing. Three out of four people trust online reviews just as much as personal recommendations. A recent Nielsen poll showed that 92% trust recommendations from people they know, and 72% of consumer opinions. That’s a staggering fact.
So how do you start building your reputation? Here are 7 simple things you can start doing to build your reputation marketing:
1. Research, set up, and claim local directories
Everyday thousands of customers search local business directories like Google, Bing, Yelp, Yahoo Local and dozens of other sites. The more you are found on, the more likely you are to be found when someone searches for your products and services.
2. Get more customer reviews.
Consumers will read an average of 10 reviews before making a decision and research shows that customers do not trust a company that has less than 10 five star reviews. Therefore, your company needs a strategy to quickly get more online reviews to show up on your directory listings. One way is to create professionally designed review post cards, business cards, or a written email campaign to collect customer reviews.
3. Diffuse any bad or poor ratings.
Each poor review not only is publically read by your potential customers, but it also brings down your reputation score on local directory sites. Many local directories such as City Search and Insider Pages aggregate reviews from other sites. Therefore both good and bad reviews can spread to other sites very quickly. The way you can diffuse the poor reviews is to get more 5 star reviews to bring your reputation score up and push the bad reviews off the first page of your listing.
4. Set up a private review page.
No matter what strategy a company uses to collect reviews; your company does not have control over the fact that customers may post bad reviews. Your business is only one customer a way from getting a poor reputation online. The solution, develop a private review page to collect reviews from customers. Create a process that gets bad reviews filtered out and sent to your company’s manager. Create a process to post 5 Star reviews online on important local business directory sites.
5. Monitor Your Reputation
This one is a little tougher. There’s plenty of different software that can monitor your social engagement, brand and company name, these technologies, like Google Alerts, cannot monitor your reputation. When people leave reviews on a directory site like Yelp, often they many not mention your name because they’re already on your business listing. Therefore, with dozens of review sites that are out there, there is no way for even the most sophisticated social or branding software to know if bad reviews are being posted and no way to follow up to get the bad reviews eliminated.
The Solution:
A. Create a process that daily monitors, tracks, and reviews your online review sites.
B. Setup protocols to review all your sites and notify a point person in your business to respond to good and bad reviews.
6. Market Your Reputation
Companies that get reviews from their customers cannot post those reviews online because local directories like Yelp, Google, Bing, and dozens of other have proprietary filters and algorithms to delete reviews that are posted from the same computer IP network. Therefore, if you post those reviews from inside your business, Google will delete them and flag your Google account as spam because there’s no way to tell if yours is real or made up.
Google in so many words discourages bribing your customers for leaving good reviews. So make sure you give great service, and then ask for a review. You can create a testimonial form to collect their info and review, and be sure to include asking for permission to post on their behalf. Once you have that, feel free to post them on your social sites and website.
7. Create a 5 star culture.
One of the most important things you need to do with your reputation marketing strategy is create a reputation marketing culture inside your business. So here’s the question. You expect your staff to give first-class service to every single one of your customers, right? Well, what’s your plan to inspire your staff to give first-class service to those customers and get raving reviews? Have a plan in place to train your staff how to execute on your reputation marketing goals.
If you’re not sure what’s being said about your business online you can find out right now at www.FreeOnlineReputationReport.com (A $197 value)
ABOUT GUEST AUTHOR: Bruce Williamson, Reputation Marketing Expert and CEO of Wild Goose Media, based in Telford, PA. Bruce advises businesses and individuals on how to leverage what you already have to build relationships, deliver value, create a 5 star reputation and tell your story online. He’s also a lover of great coffee, Chipotle, hockey, his wife, 5 sons, and a little princess due any day now. (but not necessarily in that order!) You can reach him at: bruce@wildgoosemedia.com
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | Business Growth Tips Blog, Marketing and Sales Blog Posts, Time Management/Productivity
And now for Part 2 of Boost Your Profits! 7 Key Places Small Business Owners Need to Measure to Boost Profits
#1. Measure your closing ratio and average order.
Boost your closing ratio and you will boost your profits. Closing ratio should be measured in relation to the number of people who came in the door to sample your product or service or in relation to the number of estimates you delivered to prospective customers. Both numbers are vital in making your forecast calculations. Remember that performance measured is performance gained.
#2. Measure net profits in each of your product or service offerings.
As a business you’re not just selling only one thing. You might sell one core service, but you offer it is many different ways and at different price points. But, many small business owners look at their revenues in one lump as the annual total. Instead, what you should do is run separate P & L’s (profit and loss statements) for each of your offerings.
If your company sells 4 main services you should know how they rank in terms of margins, not just in terms of the total sales volume they equaled together. You want to understand what your total net profits are as a diversified portfolio that represents all your program, product or service offerings. It’s harder to boost profits in broad strokes. Get specific on each service you offer. Remember that performance measured is performance gained.
#3. Measure your cash flow statement weekly.
It is important that you know the financial snapshot of your business on a weekly basis, particularly if cash flow is already uncomfortably tight. That means you need to have a reliable bookkeeper who can stay on top of invoicing, bills and reports. Your bookkeeper also needs to be readily accessible, so you can get your information in a timely manner. Remember that performance measured is performance gained.
#4. Measure your staff productivity.
Ok, if your response to this final step is “I don’t have any staff” then let me be blunt by saying doing everything in your business yourself is the slowest way to boost profits. If you’re a solopreneur and you don’t want the payroll expenses of hiring your first employee, start by outsourcing to a virtual assistant even 5-10 hours a week.
Whether you choose to hire employees or part time freelancers (contractors) have a system that measures their productivity. This is for you to be able to get a quick snapshot where you can see:
- how long it takes them to complete certain types of tasks
- the outcome result they accomplish and
- the value those results bring to boosting your profits.
You could have someone at $20 an hour who takes 20 hours to complete a task or you could have someone else who is paid $40 an hour who can deliver the project in two hours. By measuring staff productivity you will find that cheaper doesn’t always mean cost-effective.
In closing, if measuring these 7 areas in your business is new to you, it’s not as hard to do as you think. It’s like anything else. The more you do something the easier it becomes. Then, these success habits become as automatic and subconscious as breathing. But, nothing will change if you don’t start taking action.
ACTION STEP: Set yourself up for success by scheduling a meeting with yourself in your calendar RIGHT NOW for you to work “on your business” instead of just “in your business.” Start by scheduling a 30 min meeting once a week and mark it “review 7 measurements”.
QUESTION: What is the one biggest block that keeps you from measuring in your business? Please share your comments and questions below.
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | Business Growth Tips Blog, Marketing and Sales Blog Posts, Success Mindset
Simple Steps to Boost Your Profits!
Is your business growing every year? Not just in sales revenue, but more importantly is your business ahead right now than you were this time last year in net profits?
Whether your goal is to increase your total net profits by $10,000 or by $10 million, you need to isolate individual values that collectively contribute to that end goal. Remember that performance measured is performance gained.
My own business has grown both revenues and net profits every year for 7 years in a row. There are the seven key places I measure in my business that gives me laser direction for what I need to do to continue to help more entrepreneurs while at the same time, boost profits.
Whether you are a small business owner or a solopreneur you can start measuring these same 7 areas in your own business to help you boost profits:
#1. Measure your time.
How you spend your time makes a significant impact on how much you can boost your profits. Instead of asking at the end of each year, “where did all the profits go?” start a habit of asking at the end of each day, “where did all my time go?” We all know the old adage time is money. Time is the first place I ask clients to measure and evaluate. I often help my clients design what their PDR forms should look like (personal daily report) based on their specific duties and function. On the PDR form, or even on just a notepad, jot what you accomplished and how long it took you to complete each task. Once you accumulate a 2- to 3-week snapshot you can then begin to identify not only your efficiency and productivity, but also your effectiveness.
Your effectiveness is what = the VALUE of your time. So, what is your time worth?
While efficiency is important, you can be efficient at all the wrong things. You won’t really be aware if you are not measuring and getting an audit of your time. Remember that performance measured is performance gained.
#2. Measure your marketing results.
Another way to boost profits is to look for ways to stop bleeding profits. If you are not measuring your marketing results you may not realize how much you’re wasting in profits from marketing that is not getting great results.
First, do you log in every prospective call?
- how did they hear about your company?
- what product or service they were interested in?
- what grabbed their attention and interest in calling you as opposed to calling your competitors?
- what is their contact info?
- if they found you online, what keyword phrase did they search?
While this may sound like basic business practice it is one of the most common areas I see being skipped even be many established businesses. You can’t determine what would be a more effective approach to your marketing if you aren’t measuring how your current and past approaches have worked. Marketing mistakes bleed resources, and the biggest mistake is when it’s done arbitrarily. Remember that performance measured is performance gained.
#3. Measure your conversion efficiency.
If we want to boost profits, naturally, we need to boost sales. While sometimes sales might happen from a one step process, the average sale goes through a 7 step process. You want to the end result — to boost profits. You will boost more profits if you boost conversion in the 7 steps in your sales cycle.
- Are you measuring how well each step in your process in converting?
Examples:
- For the catering industry they need to convert inquiry calls to an appointment to sample their food.
- The health club industry needs to convert the first call into a compelling reason to come visit now.
- Service industries whose calls are mainly from price collectors can still create a compelling incentive to get the prospective customer to sample their company whether it is in the form of a valuable newsletter or educational video.
The sample stage is an important phase in your sales cycle. You don’t want to simply react to the year end profit number without examining how each phase in your sales process is actually performing. Remember that performance measured is performance gained.
QUESTION: What is the one biggest block that keeps you from measuring in your business? Please share your comments and questions below.
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | Business Growth Tips Blog, Marketing and Sales Blog Posts
Links are vital to driving traffic to your website. They allow people to find your site, and discover your content, services and products – and they can even boost your SEO. Google’s search engine algorithms monitor the quantity and quality of your website links. Their analysis directly influences how well your website ranks in Google – so link building is crucial for SEO.
Google Penguin influences the value of link building
In order to maximize the value of link building, you need to understand Penguin – one of Google’s most recent algorithm updates. It was bought in to penalize websites that manipulated their back links. Unfortunately, Penguin also penalizes any website that shows signs of link manipulation, whether or not it was intentional. In order to conform to the latest Penguin rules, there are 2 best-practices that your site should follow.
1. Publish more content, with more internal links
User experience is a big focus of Google’s latest changes. As links within your website play an important part in user experience, they directly influence your SEO. Pages with lots of helpful internal links are more likely to rank well; and they’ll help your site to convert its visitors.
To benefit from this, publish new content on a regular basis. Include natural, helpful links to external content, alongside links to your own content. This is a free and legitimate way to improve the value of link building for SEO; as long as you diversify your anchor text.
2. Boost the value of your link building with diverse anchor text
Anchor text refers to the word or phrase that contains the hyperlink to your site – like this. It used to be common practice to fill anchor text with keywords, but Google’s Penguin update rendered this practice dangerous. Websites with an obviously spam-ridden selection of anchor text are likely to get penalized, and drop down the rankings.
In order to maximize the benefit of your links, you should diversify your anchor text. Avoid too many keywords, and instead opt for:
Key Takeaways
In order to maximize the value of link building, you need to abide by Penguin’s latest rules. Thankfully, they’re pretty easy to follow, and they could boost your site’s SEO in no time.
- – Post quality content in a regular basis.
- – Include helpful links to your own content, as well as external sources.
- – Diversify your anchor text, and avoid keyword stuffing.
What techniques do you use to build links? Let me know in the comments!
Value link building: 3.5%
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | Business Growth Tips Blog, Marketing and Sales Blog Posts
The written word is the heart-and-soul of any webpage. Potential visitors search the internet for advice, news, insights and intrigue – and it’s our content that hooks their interest, and pulls them in. Article posting for SEO combines the power of quality content with the exposure of search engine visibility. Unfortunately, in the wake of Google’s Penguin and Panda updates, it’s easier than ever to get caught-out by article posting. If you want to benefit from article posting for SEO, you’ll need to take heed of the latest news:
Posting Articles on Your Own Website
Publishing content to your own website is fantastic for SEO. It allows you to build a stable of helpful advice and information, and rank for industry-related keywords. However, since Panda’s release, the quality of your content has become all-important. Matt Cutt, head of Google’s Webspam team, has said that just one or two pages of low-quality or duplicative content is enough to penalize your entire website. So, in the wake of Panda’s latest update, there are 3 article posting for SEO best-practices you should follow.
1.Avoid duplicate content
Virtually everything you publish should be unique to your site. If you quote someone else’s content, you can avoid penalization by citing the original author, and adding a link to the original source.
2.Avoid spun content
Spun content (articles rewritten from another source) is also likely to get your site penalized. Focus on creating new content, and bringing new information to the table.
3.Think long-term
Panda isn’t a flash-in-the-pan. The latest Panda update was as recent as March 14th of this year – and Matt Cutts hinted that it was about to be integrated into Google’s core algorithm. In other words, it’s here to stay. Approach your content with the same longevity, and focus on creating valuable, timeless content.
Submitting Articles to Directory Sites
Panda was originally introduced to tackle ‘content farms’ – article directories that allow websites to submit their content, and receive a back link to their site. Unfortunately, these directory sites quickly became saturated with spam, offering little value to the reader. Panda removed the benefits of posting to content farms, penalizing sites that used them to boost their SEO. Thankfully, you can easily avoid these penalties by posting content to your own site – and giving directories a wide-berth.
Guest Article Posting for SEO
Guest blogging is the most recent victim of Google Panda. Cutts spoke out about the practice, saying that this type of article posting for SEO was ‘done’. As if to reinforce his point, the prominent guest blogging site MyBlogGuest recently suffered a catastrophic Google penalty.
There’s nothing wrong with soliciting a great piece of advice from an industry-leader. The problem arises when you ask someone else, like MyBlogGuest, to source the content for you. As long as you’re guest blogging for the value it adds to your site, and not SEO, then you won’t have a problem.
‘There are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.)… I’m talking about guest blogging for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes.’
Key Takeaways
Article posting for SEO isn’t dead – you just need to be smart about it.
- – When article posting for SEO, choose quality over quantity.
- – Directory submissions are a waste of time. Focus your resources on your own website.
- – Never buy content, or use third-party agencies to source it for you.
How often do you post new articles? Let me know in the comments!
© Copyright 2016
by Yoon Cannon | Marketing and Sales Blog Posts
Keyword research determines your SEO success – but it doesn’t need to be complicated. I’ve created a concise guide, to explain exactly how to do your own keyword research. It’s easy, effective, and requires just 3 short steps to keyword success!
Step 1: Choose your short-tail keywords
To start your own keyword research, you need to define a handful of short-tail keywords. These are the words which are most relevant to your business; and most likely to attract the right type of people to your website. That means people that care about your business, and may end up as customers. There are two main ways to define short-tail keywords:
Your products and services
Choose phrases that most accurately reflect your products. If you sold secondhand cars, your keyword phrases might be used cars, cars for sale and, obviously, secondhand cars.
Your audience
What does your audience care about? In the case of the used car dealer, potential customers might be searching for advice – with phrases like dead car battery, scrap car value or part exchange. Whilst not directly searching for your products, these visitors could still become customers.
Using these sources, brainstorm a short list of potential keywords. You shouldn’t have any more than 5-6 keywords, to avoid your efforts becoming too diffuse.
Step 2: Search for long-tail variants
Short-tail keywords drive the most traffic, because they’re the most commonly-used search terms. Unfortunately, this also makes them the most competitive. Even with a sizeable marketing budget, you may not be able to compete with the giants in your industry – so we need to look to the long-tail. Long-tail keywords are slight variations on your short-tail keywords, like these:
Short-tail keyword: cars for sale
Long-tail keywords: cars for sale in New York, cheap cars for sale, best value secondhand car
These terms are more obscure, and drive less traffic as a result. Whilst this may seem like a negative, long-tail keywords are much less competitive, and more likely to convert. These search terms require greater knowledge, and mean that your visitor is closer to actually buying a product. In other words, they often represent a much better ROI than short-tail keyword phrases.
There are a number of ways to discover long-tail keywords:
-
Google Search Results
Search for your short-tail keywords, and note down Google’s own long-tail suggestions.
-
Online tools
Websites like Ubersuggest will analyze search engine results for your keyword, and bring back a list of long-tails.
-
Google Analytics
GA allows you to monitor the keywords that bring visitors to your website. Identify the long-tail keywords, and optimize your content for them.
Step 3: Check for competition and search traffic
It’s likely that you’ll come across thousands of long-tail keywords. In order to choose the best ones for your business, we need to get a bit more scientific – and that means turning to Google.
Google’s AdWords tool allows you to do your own keyword research, and view search traffic and competition. Keywords that generate a lot of searches each month will show high levels of traffic. Similarly, keywords that are used by lots of businesses will show up as Highly competitive. The best keywords will generate lots of traffic, without being too competitive. These keywords are extremely lucrative, but relatively rare. They require some effort to discover, but once you do – your business will see huge increases in traffic, leads and sales.
Doing your own keyword research is a powerful way of boosting your online success. Best of all, it’s relatively affordable, extremely effective, and perfect for achieving a cost-effective increase in your SEO efforts.
How do you do your own keyword research? Let me know in the comments!
© Copyright 2016
